


my heart stops when you look at me

by haloud



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2019-12-13
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:55:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21776383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haloud/pseuds/haloud
Summary: Just before finals Michael's first semester at UNM, he gets dragged to a live music night at a local bar. At first, he's upset to lose a night of studying, but then he just so happens to meet the man of his dreams...
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 16
Kudos: 146
Collections: RNM NWaF Weekend 2019





	my heart stops when you look at me

Michael plants his notebook right over his face to block out the sun. Just for a second. If he closes his eyes, he wouldn’t be the only exhausted student passed out on the lawn after one too many pre-exam all-nighters this week. And the paper is so nice and cool against his cheeks…

“Guerin!”

He startles and smacks the notebook off his face. Matt is in three of his six classes, one of them the long-ass lab that is both Michael’s favorite part of the week and an exercise in restraint. He’s a good guy. A good guy with a really loud voice.

“Hi, Michael,” Erin says, looking down at him with furrowed eyebrows. She’s a junior and was Michael’s orientation leader. They’re sort of friends? He helped her fix her car when it was raining and she was stuck on campus at night, and she payed him fifty bucks for it. ‘You take what you get with first semester friends,’ Isobel says sagely, like she’s not also a first semester freshman, and like she hasn’t made a million friends already.

Ugh, that’s not fair. Isobel misses him and Max fiercely. At least as much as Michael misses her. At least there will be time to visit over the holiday—even if it’s forced time, since the dorms are closing and Michael has nowhere else to go.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” Michael sits up and brushes grass out of his hair, even though it’s finals week so it’s totally acceptable if he looks like he crawled out of a bush at any given moment.

“Are you doing anything tonight?” Erin asks.

“Just more of this.” Michael wiggles his notebook at her. “I have Jayaraman next semester too, so I want to make a good impression on the final.”

“Do you think you could maybe take one teeny, tiny night off?” Matt wheedles.

“Uh…”

“It’s Friday,” Erin cuts in, “And finals don’t start until next Thursday. You’ve totally got time to come downtown with us.”

“Take us downtown, she means. Her car is busted again.”

“You could have said something; I’d have fixed it.”

“It only happened, like, the other day, and we’ve all been busy. Anyway, there’s this great bar that’s having a music night, and I really want to go. I think you’d like it! You have great taste in music, Michael.”

“Uh…thanks?”

“You’re welcome! So you’re in?”

“Sure,” Michael says weakly, wishing he was saying anything else. New, crowded places with people he doesn’t know all that well. Sounds like a great and not at all stressful start to the weekend.

* * *

This is the first time Michael has set foot in any of the bars around campus, and it turns out it looks like…every other bar Michael’s ever been in, only with more red and silver around the place.

“This is the best of them for live music,” Erin says as the bouncer digs his stamp into the back of Michael’s hand, printing him with a huge, wet X.

“Is anyone good playing? Or even anyone you’ve heard before?” Michael mostly wants to know how wasted his night is about to be. He has a spare notebook and his textbook shoved under his arm, but with the noise and the people…he’ll be so distracted not much will get done anyway. But, hey, friendship and all that. Friendship and a little light kidnapping, maybe.

“A couple of decent cover bands, some locals. But we’re here for one group in particular—there’s this guy out of Roswell, actually—”

“Oh my god,” Matt cuts in, “Did you drag us here to make us listen to a guy with a guitar sing about alien abductions.”

Matt is just as guilty of the dragging, Michael doesn’t point out.

“I said he’s _from_ Roswell, don’t be a dick. And he’s not just a guy with a guitar, he’s part of a group and they’re really good, but his voice is amazing.”

Matt and Erin bicker good-naturedly all the way inside. The music already playing when they walk in is…fine. Better than the stuff Michael plays on the guitar Max gave him last Christmas, anyway, not that Michael lets being bad stop him from loving the music. But it’s still loud, still crowded, still a distraction he doesn’t need dropped in his lap by people he doesn’t really know

Michael hangs back, letting the others go ahead of him to get swallowed up by the crowd pushing against the low stage. Erin pauses for just a second, eyebrows raised in concern; she hooks her thumb toward the crush of people, asking if he’s coming, and Michael shakes his head, waving his notebook in response. He sticks to the edge of the crowd for a little bit; he edges toward the bar and gets a bottle of soda, just for something to do. Then, finally, someone stumbles out of one of the booths along the wall, and Michael darts for it before it can get claimed again. When he looks back, Erin and Matt are gone. He sighs, forcing his shoulders down. He drove, so it’s not like they can leave him stranded, and they’re together and have been here before, so they’re more fine than he is. And he’s fine.

A little bored, though, as setup ends and the next guy takes the stage and starts plucking out a moody ballad. Michael digs the point of his pen into a page, idly working it back and forth until the paper starts to tear under the soggy weight of ink and pressure. There’s not a formula he’s written down in these notes he doesn’t already have memorized by now, but still somehow it feels like sitting here surrounded by distractions is playing with fire. Or with failure, rather, and then probation, and then expulsion, and then he’s lost, well, everything. He fumbles his phone out of his pocket to check the time, runs through the time zone calculations in his mind. Isobel is states away, Max an entire ocean, but he could probably still call one of them just so they can jerk him out of his catastrophizing. But wouldn’t that be overreacting in itself? It’s not like he doesn’t know he’s going to pass the exam no matter what, or that one exam doesn’t define him (the Isobel answer vs. the Max answer).   
  
He punches through to the next page. On stage, moody ballad guy says a quick thank you to a lukewarm crowd and exits stage left.

Two women take over the stage next. They pull Michael’s eye, the lights off their dark hair, the easy way they move around each other, so comfortable on stage Michael wonders if maybe they play here regularly. They dance around each other, weave around the wires, except when they collide on purpose, elbows into ribs, hips into hips, laughing and shoving past the other. They get set up, guitars and keyboards and all mic’d up, then one of the women comes up to the main mic, so close to smearing her poppy-red lipstick.

“Well, we’re supposed to be getting started, but somebody is running a little bit late.”

“If anyone make an alien abduction joke, we’ll get you thrown out,” the other woman crows from behind the keyboard.

This must be the group from Roswell, then, the whole reason Erin wanted to come in the first place. Michael flips his notebook closed to focus, then opens it again, then closes it when the woman abandons the mic to lean over the other side of the keyboard and talk in close with the other, then opens it again when he realizes he’s staring. He scruffs his hand through the back of his hair and hunches over his notes, as if he can duck from the hum of anticipation running through the crowd.

A hum that only gets louder and feverish when there’s a clatter behind the stage, and a guy, breathless and flushed from being outside, bounds up onto the stage to join the other two members of the band. A bit of a cheer comes up from the audience as he grabs one of the guitars, and he swings his head around to acknowledge them, teeth white and flashing in his grin as he raises a hand, stage lights playing off the subtle muscle in his arm, and Michael’s staring again, hand wandering to his mouth, picking at a chapped spot on his lip.

“Sorry about that,” the guy laughs into the mic. “You guys ready to get going?”

The cheer goes up again, louder this time. They start to play, but Michael--Michael’s gone way past distraction and into full on not paying attention on anything but, foot rattling on the sticky floor, eyes fixed magnetically on the guy at the front of the stage.

The singer has a little scar right over his eyebrow. Michael bites his thumb to make it stop tingling from want to reach out and follow the line down to his eye. He wants to touch him all over, really, wants to cup his face and feel his cheekbones under his thumbs and feel the softness of his dark hair on his fingertips, but it’s that little scar that calls to him most, calls for his fingers and his lips, and Michael bites down harder as another pulse of wanting goes through him.

“Brand new city, no more excuses,” had been Isobel’s mantra for months before any of them left, Iz and Michael to school and Max for his long-awaited road trip. But so far for Michael it hasn’t been much of either. He’s barely seen the city, and he’s been pretty comfortable in his, well, not _comfortable_ but _familiar,_ old excuses.

_What’s an excuse, again?_ He thinks as the man on the stage smiles down at his guitar, eyes closed like he’s in bliss, ink-black eyelashes fanned out across those cheekbones.

Here’s one: Michael’s still never kissed a guy, no matter how sexually free television has reassured him college is supposed to be. This guy, no matter how much he makes all of Michael’s atoms sit up and take notice, no matter how his deep, smooth voice makes the hair on the back of Michael’s neck stand up and his breath catch in his lungs, there’s no _guarantee_ he’s even into guys. And if he is he’s probably got guys lining up and he’s probably confident and experienced and if Michael came up to him after his set and tried to charm him he probably _could_ but then if the singer _wants_ him he’ll have to show his cards and just embarrass himself when the singer can definitely do better.

Better to languish in lonely anonymity with only his PHYS204 notes to keep him warm at night. It’s just better this way.

The slow song finishes, and the man starts in on something faster, something some people in the bar seem to recognize, as a cheer goes up around the stage.

“Yeah?” The man calls over the noise, a blinding grin spreading across his face as the crowd calls back an answer. The girl on bass whoops wildly along with the crowd, pouring more electric energy on top. Even Michael gets goosebumps all up and down his arms. The singer plays the song’s intro a second time with that brilliant smile making the music even better to Michael’s ears, so much so that he considers for a split second abandoning his notes and pressing into the crowd, pushing through bodies until he’s right up front, so the singer would look at him, see him, notice him even for just a split second before he moves on to the next city.

But he stays where he is, ass planted in the booth and feet cemented to the sticky floor, and he chomps on the end of his pen because he ran out of un-bitten parts of his thumb. There are a few people here that know this song well enough to sing along to the chorus, but Michael can’t even focus long enough to hear a single word, too busy watching the way the singer’s lips shape them, the way they shine under the lights like maybe they’re covered in a hint of gloss, and Michael wiggles his pen between his teeth wondering what it might _taste_ like…

This song comes to an end too, and Michael sucks in a deep, slow breath as the singer wraps those lips around the neck of a water bottle and takes several deep gulps, his Adam’s apple bobbing, showcasing that long, slender neck. Michael nearly spits his pen across the table as he fumbles to take a matching gulp of his soda, just so his mouth makes the same shape as the singer’s.

And then.

For a moment, just for a moment, and—Michael has to be imagining things, because there aren’t any lights pointing his way, isn’t anything, he must just be scanning the crowd but—for a _second,_ he’s chewing his lip and watching elegant musician’s fingers screw the top back on a bottle, then the very _next_ second he’s looking up and the singer is looking back at him. Michael’s breath freezes in his lungs. He can almost, almost still hear the last reverberating note of their last song, curled up and humming inside of his ribcage.

The moment snaps like an overstressed string a second later when one of his bandmates taps him on the shoulder and he looks around and laughs that gorgeous laugh and Michael _melts_ into a puddle on the tabletop, his brain screaming in his ears.

“One more, then we have to step aside and give someone else a turn,” the singer says into the mic. Michael hears it muffled through his arms over his ears. He sits up so he can watch all through their last song. He’d close his eyes and let the music wash over him, but he wants to drink in the sight of the singer for as long as he possibly can, so he does, transfixed by the way his hands curve around the neck of his guitar, around the mic stand, the way his eyelashes shadow his cheekbones when he looks down, the way his eyes catch the light when he looks up and out across the crowd. For a breathless second, Michael thinks they make eye contact again, and then the second is gone.

The crowd cheers enthusiastically when the song ends, the three musicians thank them, and go to leave the stage. Michael exhales like it’s the first time he’s breathing all night.

The next act is a woman playing something quiet and mellow, and Michael sighs and curls his shoulders in, flipping open his textbook for the first time since that band took the stage. He likes studying, he does, but he likes it a little less in stark contrast to the magic that was sparking through him when that singer was at the mic.

“Hey, is this seat taken?” A slightly hoarse voice says.

Michael flips another page and doesn’t look up. “Uhh…no?”

He’s had it too good for too long, apparently. Fair enough, though; this place is packed. Anyway, maybe now that the Roswell group is done, Michael can go find Matt and Erin and get out of here. The guy slides into the other side of the booth, and, sighing, Michael flips his textbook and notes closed and goes to stand.

“Leaving so soon?”

“Look, man—” Then Michael chokes on his own spit as he finally looks up and sees who he’s talking to.

It’s _him._ Smudged eyeliner, dark hair glittering with sweat, skintight black t-shirt clinging to every curve and contour of his chest, that little scar on his eyebrow—Michael drops back down onto the seat and rocks back, not sure why he’s here, not sure what he wants, just not sure—

“I don’t want to keep you here,” the singer says, head tilted, almost apologetic as he pulls his hands toward himself, off the table, away from Michael. “But I saw you, and—I don’t know, thought we might get to know each other.”

“Uh, ok, yeah.” Michael bites down on his tongue, trying not to babble. “Um. You guys were really great. My first time hearing you, but yeah. I really love music, and you guys—yeah.”

Okay. Not smooth. But at least he hasn’t hit himself with anything yet, so he’s doing better than Max whenever he’s got a crush.

“Really? Thanks.” His face lights up in a broad smile. Michael’s heart thumps pitifully. The guy says, “Maria, Rosa, and I—” he points to the bar where the two women he was on stage with are sitting, naming them both, “haven’t been playing together long, but it’s still been a dream come true. I’m Alex, by the way.”

He holds out his hand. Michael swallows.

“Michael,” he says, and shakes his hand.

Goosebumps prickle up his arm to his shoulder at the warm brush of his hand, at the feeling of guitar callouses on his palm, at the shivering electric of the two of them _touching_ for the first time. Michael’s hand is slightly clammy, but that’s okay, because Alex’s is too.

“So do you go to school here?” Alex asks, leaning forward.

“Um, yeah. Freshman. Although you could probably guess, considering I’m like the only one here with the mark of doom.” Michael waves his hand with its faded black X. Oh yeah, super cool, way to go, Mikey. Just broadcast to the world that you’re too young to drink and guys who make music and wear eyeliner will just come lining up to beat your door down.

“You’re definitely not the only one. I’d have one too if I wasn’t playing. As it is, the bartenders just know not to serve me anything that isn’t virgin.” He bats those long eyelashes. Michael wants to crawl under the table, half to hide, half to put his head on his knee.

“Are you guys touring?” Michael asks, poking himself in the lip with the gnawed end of his pen rather than spitting up his other question: Will you be in town long? Can I see you again?

“If you count pounding New Mexico pavement as touring,” Alex says with a self-deprecating laugh. “Maria’s family has owned a bar in our hometown for, like, ever, and her mom gets us some gigs through the grapevine. We’ve got a few more things lined up for the next few weeks, but nothing super exciting or anything.”

“Touring or not, you’ve probably got cooler places to be than I do,” Michael says, forcing a flicker of a smile, “my dorm room doesn’t even, like, have any posters in it. Not that cinder brick isn’t industrial chic or something—my sister likes to joke that—oh my god I’m babbling so badly, please put me out of my misery.” Michael’s face is _burning_ with embarrassment, so hot that there’s probably like no way the cute guy can’t tell even through the dim ambiance of the bar.

And this guy—Alex—just smiles that enigmatic little smile (Max would call it a _Mona Lisa smile,_ and oh my god if he’s starting to think like Max this must be _serious_ ) and taps his index finger against his lip.

“I might be able to fix your poster problem, or at least contribute to the cause,” he says. “Unless you think it’s just way too arrogant. Although maybe arrogance can be part of my rock star mystique. Does it work on me?” He wiggles his eyebrows suggestively, in a way that ought to be a little silly but actually just makes Michael take another desperate chug of his soda to avoid babbling even more. The little scar moves with his eyebrows and Michael wants so _badly_ to kiss it. To kiss him. Like he’s never wanted to kiss a guy before, not even Danny Giordano who sat next to him in first period and wore v-neck shirts and made him realize for the first time that he even _liked_ guys. Nothing has ever come close to the way this man’s fingers look all long and strong on his guitar and oh my god is he making this weird he’s definitely making this weird.

“Hey,” Alex says, and he reaches out to grab Michael’s wrist before he can sink his teeth into his thumb again. He slides his thumb tenderly across the thin skin of Michael’s wrist, and holy shit he’s going to pass out.

Alex says, “Hey, it’s okay. Are you feeling okay? Are you here with anyone—”

“No, I’m fine—” Michael says, miserable, face bright red.

Even though he basically has to be wearing makeup to make his face look that perfect and smooth, Alex’s cheeks go a little bit pink too. “Um, right. Uh—posters! I can give you one. For the band. If you want it? I mean, not that you were just here for us or anything—I can ask another group if you’d prefer—”

“No! I want you. I mean, uh. Your band. ‘S poster. Would you sign it?”

“Would you want me to?”

“Please,” Michael breathes pitifully. But then he remembers that he’s chewed his pen into a gross nub of its former self and almost whimpers with disappointment.

Alex doesn’t disappoint, though. He gets up for just a second—Michael watches his back as he makes his way across the room, watches the heavy rise and fall of his boots and the sway of his shoulders and the way his ass looks in those painted-on jeans—to talk to one of the girls he was on stage with, the one who played the keys and Alex pointed out as Maria earlier. They talk for a bit; Maria even glances Michael’s way, a knowing smirk on her face, and Michael’s face catches on fire. He’s out of soda, so he doesn’t even have anything to drown himself with.

Maria turns back to Alex and laughs, and Michael squirms, digging his finger into a split seam in the seat’s upholstery. Are they talking about him? Okay, it’s probably sort of funny to Alex’s friends, yeah, that some scruffy college student is trying to talk to him, trying to…flirt? But that doesn’t mean it feels funny to Michael, whose heart is still fluttering, high on adrenaline, on the chance that Alex might come back to talk with him some more. Whatever it is Alex wants—to promote his band, sure, whatever, he’ll send Isobel their mixtape tonight—to hook up, maybe? Michael’s down for that too, even if it sucks to know that’s all he’d ever be. Fuck. Don’t come on too strong. There’s almost zero chance Alex is looking for a groupie. Get your shit together, Guerin, before he comes back.

Rosa shoves Alex’s shoulders and, still laughing, Alex goes along with it, letting her propel him a couple steps across the floor and back toward Michael. Michael’s hands flutter, searching for something new to fiddle with and finding nothing, and he shoves them into his hoodie pockets before Alex gets too close. With that gorgeous smile, and his eyes all sparkling and crinkled at the corners. 

“Sorry that took so long,” Alex says, sliding back into the booth. “Apparently to get a Sharpie from my friends you have to answer three riddles or something.”

Michael lets out a breathy sigh and, like, he’d deny it, but his eyelashes flutter when Alex bounces forward to lean on his elbows, bringing himself closer to Michael, as close as they can be with the table still separating them.

“Oh, no worries,” Michael replies, and he could punch the air in triumph when his voice comes out smooth and normal, “I’ve just been sitting here waiting for you to finish your quest and come back to rescue me.”

There. Is that flirty enough? Is he being obvious enough? Michael doesn’t know _how_ to flirt with guys or how to tell if guys are flirting with him. He still doesn’t know why Alex came over here in the first place.

“No prince would keep you waiting for too long,” Alex responds, his dark eyes glittering, one lid dropping in a slow, teasing wink. Before Michael can figure out a suitably smooth response, Alex uncaps his marker and unrolls the poster he brought with him just enough to scrawl a dramatic signature across it, alongside his bandmates’ names that must have been added while he was talking to them.

They’d been so beautiful looking, together, laughing and teasing each other and having fun. Alex clearly _has_ friends. What does he need Michael for? In high school if he got approached it was usually by girls who knew he was kind of easy, but he doesn’t want Alex to think of him like that—and he shouldn’t, right? Unless Michael just kind of gives off that desperate vibe? Not that he _isn’t_ desperate, mind you, for any sliver of Alex’s attention he can get; not that he isn’t scanning the crowd for Erin and Matt and hoping he doesn’t see them so they can spend more time together until Alex decides to leave.

“Everything okay?” Alex asks for the second time that night. Michael looks up at him and his head is tilted again, dramatic brows furrowed. Slowly, like he’s reaching out to a new animal, he reaches across the table to touch Michael’s wrist, eyes on his face waiting for Michael to tell him no, but Michael lets him, and relishes the goosebumps climbing up his arms again.

Michael clears his throat, knowing this time he basically has to answer. “Yeah,” he says, “It’s just…why are you being so nice to me? You probably have lots of people who’d work way harder for your autograph.”

Alex blinks at that. Then a little smile curves his lips and he says, “Our eyes met across a crowded room. Isn’t that a good reason?”

“Maybe. But, _usually,”_ Michael slips his thumbnail under the label on his soda bottle, “Usually, people tend to have an ulterior motive for being nice to strangers.”

“Really?”

Alex pulls him forward, then, hard enough for Michael to wince when his ribs knock against the tabletop, and Alex rucks his sleeve up, and then the cold, wet tip of the marker is stroking on his skin, and when Alex lets him go there are ten digits scrawled across his forearm.

“Give me a call, then we won’t be strangers anymore,” he says, eyebrows raised, lip caught between his teeth.

Michael just—Michael gapes at him, eyes wide and lost for words, until he’s called by Rosa and Maria and gets up to leave, and Michael reaches out for him on instinct, catches him by the hand.

“I will,” he says, “I’ll call you. I definitely will. Um. Talk to you later?”

“Can’t wait,” Alex breathes, squeezes Michael’s hand, then disappears into the crowd.

**Author's Note:**

> writing dorky teen michael is so wonderful and cathartic haha i love this child
> 
> set dressing for this 'verse is that it's a human au, max, isobel, and michael actually were dumped by a cult, max and isobel were still adopted together and michael went into foster care. but they reunited when the evanses moved to santa fe and the evanses ended up adopting michael too when they were around 13. alex's story is much the same, but he ran away at 18 instead of joining the army, and mimi took him in. rosa still has a lot of the same problems, but no aliens means no noah means she never gets killed. 
> 
> i kind of love these kids and a world for them that's just a little bit kinder :)


End file.
